


Advanced Science

by blueticked



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Respawn Mechanics, Teleportation, no beta we die like grian saying he's ready to blow up on youtube, non-permanent minecraft death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:42:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28319175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueticked/pseuds/blueticked
Summary: Zedaph's the most normal person on Hermitcraft. No magic, no secrets, no crazy backstory. The only thing special about him were his purple eyes, which apparentlyweren'tnormal?
Comments: 41
Kudos: 104





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CrazyCatMeow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyCatMeow/gifts).



> Christmas secret santa story exchange! Merry Christmas Cat!! :D
> 
> Thank you to my nho bros; we brainstormed this idea together forever ago!
> 
> All 3 chapters are written and will be posted over the next few days.

Zedaph’s the most normal person on Hermitcraft. The most _boring_ , Tango would mock with a punch to his arm, and Zedaph conceded contentedly that it was true.

He had spawned in a single player world and created a base for himself, as any player would. Xisuma had found him and invited him to Hermitcraft. That was all. That was his entire history. He was no robot, he had no magic, he hadn’t come to Hermitcraft to escape from monsters of his past. In fact, he was a rather odd addition to Hermitcraft, considering the stories and adventures of the other hermits before they came. He couldn’t help but wonder sometimes how Xisuma found him, and why Xisuma decided to invite him.

The only thing that was apparently strange about him was his purple eyes, which he learnt weren’t “normal”. Then again, who dictated what was normal? Just because the rest of the hermits had never seen someone with purple eyes in their many adventures didn’t mean that they didn’t exist! Xisuma had purple eyes!

“Xisuma’s not human,” he was told kindly.

Touche. Still, Zedaph’s supposedly special eye colour wasn’t something that affected his daily life, or bothered him. He continued to do what he had always done best in his singleplayer world: experiment. Sure, all the technical players knew everything there was to know about redstone, but did anyone ever try redstone _versus_ something else? Redstone versus saturation? Redstone versus the sun and moon? Redstone versus water? That was what Zedaph was here for, _experiments_ , and he prided himself on it. Not just his own, but others’ experiments too.

When Tango asked who might be interested to test his new ravager teleporter system, Zedaph threw his name into a hat, a hat that would have been otherwise empty.

“Ravagers are dangerous,” Tango explained when Zedaph expressed his astonishment that no one else signed up, “Not everyone is as crazy as you, Zed, not everyone wants to be slammed in the chest by a ravager.”

“I will have a shield!” Zedaph argued.

“A shield that’d probably break in three failed attempts,” Tango warned, handing Zedaph the shield.

“Well that still gives me three successful tries,” Zedaph grinned back, despite the way he gripped the handle of the shield with two tightly clenched hands and held it an arm’s length in front of himself.

“Wait for the head wiggle!” Tango instructed as Zedaph approached the ravager.

Zedaph grunted as the ravager smacked him for the first time, the force shoving the shield right back against his chest, knocking him backwards. Tango steadied him from behind, pushing him forth to meet the ravager again as the ravager did the head wriggle. Zedaph squeezed his eyes shut, his toes digging into the soles of his shoes as he steadied himself for the impact.

_Please teleport, please teleport, please teleport…_

The hard smack of the ravager slamming into him again. The ground disappearing from beneath his feet. The air howling past his ears. The fluttering of his clothes. A nervous peeking open of his eyes as his shoes ground to a rough stop on the grass, causing him to stumble backwards over his feet until his back pressed up against the new town hall that Grian, Scar and Bdubs had built recently.

In front of him was the large expansive sea, Tango’s colourful base barely visible through the mist and the clouds. A burst of rockets in the sky above him and Zedaph looked up to see Tango’s flying figure growing bigger.

“IT WORKED!” Tango hollered at him, delighted.

Zedaph lifted his shield triumphantly as Tango landed next to him, then lowered his sore arms with a groan.

“Ravagers hit hard,” Zedaph complained.

“I told you!” Tango laughed, taking the shield from him and examining the damage. “I warned ya!”

Zedaph returned a chuckle, crossing his aching arms and pressing them down on his chest.

“Let me try,” Tango said eagerly, holding Zedaph’s shield in one hand and rocketing back to his base with the other.

“Wait! Tango!” Zedaph shouted after him. “I don’t have… well,” He made himself comfortable on the grass patch against the back of the town hall. A second thought, and he used his legs to drag himself to the far right of the town hall instead, avoiding the possibility of Tango slamming into him when he landed where Zedaph had after the ravager teleportation.

He’d have to wait for Tango to join him once again before asking Tango to bring him his elytra from his base. But how was Tango supposed to return to his base after being teleported to the shopping district via ravager? He wouldn’t be wearing an elytra or holding rockets. Maybe they would have to boat across the sea back to Tango’s base. That wouldn’t be too bad. Hopefully Tango would volunteer to row the boat, because Zedaph’s arms were _sore_. This experiment had shown him how hard a ravager could hit! He wondered if ravagers responded to the colour red? Could he entice a ravager to take down a mountain for him by waving a red cloth in its face?

Zedaph pulled out his communicator when it buzzed in his pocket.

 **Tango:** Umm… I can’t ravager teleport??? I’ve broken 2 shields.

Zedaph grinned.

 **Zedaph:** I win!  
**Xisuma:** Are you trying that now?  
**Tango:** yes  
**Xisuma:** The world sees ravager teleportation as flying so it stops you from doing that  
**Xisuma:** I haven’t disabled the anti-fly program  
**Xisuma:** let me do that now  
**Tango:** Zed did it though??  
**Xisuma:** no way  
**Tango:** yesWAY?  
**Zedaph:** But I did!!

“ZED!” Tango yelled from the sky, soaring towards him at full rocket speed. “YOU CHEATED!”

“I’m not opped in the world!” Zedaph laughed, dodging Tango’s aerial attack. Tango slammed headfirst into the town hall and crashed to the ground next to him.

“Then how??” Tango sat up and rubbed his head.

“I don’t know!” Zedaph grabbed Tango’s arm and helped him up. “It must have been a glitch in the world system that allowed me past the anti-fly program.”

“No,” Tango narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“Really!” Zedaph protested, then held a hand out. “Also, I was wondering if you brought my elytra with you.”

Tango spread open his elytra wings again and propelled himself upwards, back into the air.

"Teleport home, cheaterface!" Tango shouted with gusto, spinning in circles above Zedaph.

Zedaph chuckled and looked around the shopping district for a stray tree to punch. He wondered if Ren would notice a couple blocks of wood missing from his store.

\-----------

Tango was keeping an eye on Zedaph’s combrewter while Zedaph built the aquarium around it when Zedaph mentioned the ender pearls.

“Did you know that ender pearls can teleport you through blocks?”

“No, what??” Tango raised his voice in surprise.

“Look!” Zedaph exclaimed, hopping up a couple blocks so he stood at a level higher than Tango. He pulled out an ender pearl from his pocket and reached his other arm out to touch the solid glass block in front of him, glancing back at Tango. Tango gave an affirmative nod, and Zedaph threw the ender pearl into the corner of the glass block.

Nerves struck him the moment he threw that ender pearl, suddenly worried that he had thrown the ender pearl wrongly, or that the teleportation glitch would fail him that very moment.

_Don’t make me look like an idiot, teleport please, please teleport…_

Zedaph yelped as he materialized barely through the glass block, the edge of his shirt snagged _inside_ the glass block still. He hung there for a moment, until gravity pulled him downwards and he tumbled onto the sand below with an oomph.

“No way!” Tango shouted at him. Zedaph waved at Tango through the glass, who was holding his head with both hands, mindblown. “Does the glitch work with other blocks?”

“No, just glass as far as I can tell.” Zedaph dusted himself off and made the climb around the glass dome back into the combrewter area. “Maybe it’s because they’re see-through, so like, the ender pearl can see through the glass block to teleport me to what’s behind.”

“Ender pearls can’t see,” Tango snorted.

“You’re not an ender pearl, how would you know if ender pearls can or can’t see?” Zedaph retorted.

“It’s an item!” Tango argued.

“It has an eye!” Zedaph pulled out another ender pearl and pointed to its dark green center.

Tango rolled his eyes, chuckling. He held his hand out and Zedaph gave him the ender pearl.

“Let me try,” Tango said, and threw the ender pearl in the same corner that Zedaph did.

Tango grunted as he was smashed headfirst into a wall of glass. Zedaph burst into laughter.

“It didn’t work!” Tango complained.

“Did you believe it would work?” Zedaph raised a mischievous eyebrow.

“No…”

“Well, there you go,” Zedaph waved his hand in a presenting manner. “You have to believe.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tango, waved a semi-dismissive hand, already eager to move on to the next exciting activity. “Are we filling up this aquarium, or what?”

“Are you giving me iron to make my buckets?”

“Look at this guy!” Tango grumbled as he pulled out his iron shulker box. “Always so demanding!”

“I know, right?” Zedaph grinned. “Who does he think he is?!”

\---------------

Zedaph didn’t like endbusting. He didn’t like The End in general: they couldn’t look up at the endermen so they had to stare at the ground - and the ground sometimes disappeared beneath their feet; the high possibility of falling off the edge making it not worth the trip for elytras. He had always been content with the couple of elytras Tango was willing to give him after his endbusting sessions with Impulse, but Impulse was busy today and Tango had insisted that he _needed_ to endbust _today_ for more shulker shells, and that was how Zedaph had been roped into endbusting with him.

Zedaph shuddered at the coldness of The End as they came through the portal, permeating through his skin and chilling his bones. His veins quivered beneath his skin, blood rushing through being the only factor keeping him warm within. His heart was beating so quickly to keep his blood rushing, keep him warm, that it almost sounded like a low hum from his chest, audible in the silence of the void around them.

“Well,” Tango turned to Zedaph and said, his voice sounding echoey in The End. He gestured at the void around them, “pick a direction.”

“Hold on, let me _feel_ for the nearest end city with a boat,” Zedaph teased, holding his arms out in front of him as though they were some sort of antennas. He closed his eyes and spun in a slow circle, letting out a low, consistent hum that matched his heartbeat, in search of a make-believe frequency that would show them the way. Tango cackled with laughter behind him.

Zedaph’s fingers twitched unconsciously, wildly, as he faced a particular direction. **You’ve found the frequency you’re looking for,** something at the back of his mind told him. He wasn’t actually looking for a real frequency, Zedaph corrected himself. **Home is this way** , his mind responded. A force tugged him forward, like a central magnet pulling him in that direction. His foot took an automatic step forward - and Zedaph changed it into a stumble forward instead.

What was pulling him forward?

“Stop pushing me!” Zedaph spun around and raised his voice at Tango to hide his own irregular actions. He leaned over to shove Tango, forcing Tango to stagger backwards with a shout of surprise. He hadn’t meant to actually push Tango over. Perhaps he was laying the counter-reaction a little heavily to cover up the strange way he was acting.

“I didn’t touch you, dude!” Tango laughed, taking steps away from Zedaph so he was far enough not to reach him. Tango gestured at the void around them. “Go on, do your thing!”

Zedaph forced out a returning laugh, then turned to face the void to continue the whole ‘sensing for an end city’ act. He raised his arms slowly towards _that_ direction - and caught his fingers in the act! His hand just… spasmed in front of his own eyes! Zedaph looked far out in that direction - there was nothing but void in front of him.

 **Home is this way** , his mind repeated. **Seeking central connection…**

What was going on?

**Connection established. Linked to ENDER-EXT-045.**  
**Designated folder: ZEDAPH.**  
**Remote communication channel activated.**

> ZEDAPH, you’ve returned.

“Did you say something?” Zedaph turned around to look at Tango. “Did you hear something?”

> Come back to the main computers with your report.

**Affirmative. Self-awareness activated. Downloading data…**

“Oh, Zed,” Tango said, his eyes widening. “Your eyes.”

Zedaph lifted a quick hand to his eyes. “What?”

“They’re glowing. Like, enderman eyes glowing.”

**Data downloaded.**

Zedaph inhaled sharply, his unblinking eyes darting to the ground briefly as unfiltered information filled his mind with a new sense of being, a new reason for existence. A realization of what he was. An explanation for his purple eyes.

“Zed?”

“Oh yeah, they’re all connected to the central computer,” Zedaph said, looking up at Tango again, “and now, I am too.”

“What?!” Tango shook his head.

**Calculating distance to central computers… distance calculated.  
** **Calculating teleportation distance… distance calculated.  
** **Teleportation sequence initiated.**

“I have to go home,” Zedaph explained. “I have to submit my report. You know how it is.”

“No, I don’t!” Tango exclaimed, “Zed, what’s going on?”

“Robot stuff, you know,” Zedaph took a step back. “Well, bye!”

Zedaph disappeared in a burst of endermen teleportation particles.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

“Did you say something?” Zedaph turned around to look at Tango. “Did you hear something?”

Tango shook his head slowly, staring at Zedaph.

Zedaph’s eyes were glowing. Smaller white lights flickered in a circle around his iris like a loading signal, like a machine receiving information and sorting through them.

Was Zedaph a…

He couldn’t be. Zed was the most lively, most responsive, most reactive member on the server. Most _human_. He jumped at the opportunity to participate in the craziest experiments; that wasn’t something a self-preserving robot would do.

“Oh, Zed,” Tango said, his voice soft in wonder and concern. “Your eyes.”

Zedaph lifted a quick hand to his eyes. “What?”

“They’re glowing. Like, enderman eyes glowing.”

The loading symbol in his purple eyes disappeared. Zedaph inhaled sharply, looking down to the ground, frozen for a moment - receiving the new information, perhaps?

“Zed?” Tango prompted.

“Oh yeah, they’re all connected to the central computer,” Zedaph said, looking up at Tango again, “and now, I am too.”

“What?!” Tango shook his head. Zedaph made it sound like it was obvious, like it was the most logical explanation in the world.

Computer? Were the endermen an intelligent species? Hiding away their science and discovery on some far off End island from the rest of the world? How had players not discovered ender science? It would reveal so many secrets, like their ability to teleport - was that science and not just mob magic? Etho and Doc were going to lose their minds when Tango told them.

“I have to go home,” Zedaph continued. “I have to submit my report. You know how it is.”

“No, I don’t!” Tango exclaimed, “Zed, what’s going on?”

“Robot stuff, you know,” Zedaph took a step back. So he _was_ a robot! That still didn’t explain anything. “Well, bye!” Zedaph waved.

“Zed, wait!” Tango shouted, as purple endermen teleportation particles appeared in the air around Zedaph, more and more gathering around him until it obscured him. His entire body _trembled_ , seemed to _glitch_ , and then he disappeared into thin air.

Tango fumbled for his communicator.

**Tango:** X, help  
 **Tango:** I think zed has been possessed  
 **Tango:** by the endermen????  
 **Xisuma:** where are you?  
 **Tango:** in the end  
 **Tango:** zed just enderman-teleported  
 **Tango:** disappeared  
 **Tango:** I don’t know where he is  
 **Xisuma:** on my way

Tango jumped as Xisuma materialized that very moment - teleported out of nowhere - right beside him, covered with purple enderman particles that dissipated quickly.

“Yes! That’s exactly what Zed did!” Tango exclaimed and pointed at him.

Xisuma turned to him with a seriousness that frightened Tango, quickly subduing his reaction.

“Is Zed in danger?” Tango asked quietly.

“I know where he is,” Xisuma said, holding his hand out for Tango. “We’ll have to teleport there.”

“We can’t fly there?” Tango joked weakly, taking Xisuma’s hand. Tango had had to use his minor admin teleportation abilities in urgent times before and it wasn’t an experience he enjoyed. Xisuma only shook his head in response.

The purple teleportation particles fizzled into view around them, the world beyond trembling, blurring from view. Come to think of it, admin teleportation never had the enderman teleportation particles; it was a clean teleport that instantly zipped him across hundreds or thousands of blocks as necessary. Xisuma hadn’t used his admin abilities to teleport to Tango. He had used the same magic Zedaph used to teleport away. What was-

Tango’s line of thought was interrupted by Xisuma taking a step forward and pulling Tango along. That single step was a teleportation through a wormhole that sucked the breath out of Tango. It didn’t affect Xisuma the same way, breathing normally throughout, and Tango wondered if it was because Xisuma was used to it or if it was because he was wearing a protective suit. Xisuma released Tango’s hand as their feet touched solid ground again, and Tango stumbled forward with a sharp gasp of air, falling to his knees. The purple teleportation particles fizzled away and the new area started to load in around them.

Tall mechanical towers with electricity zapping between them. Endermen holding complicated blocks Tango had never seen before, teleporting with _purpose_ instead of randomly (or, what had always been seen as random to him), inserting blocks here and there in the machine, swapping out pieces, breaking down smaller towers and building new ones - they were all working with the complicated computer to keep it running.

Zedaph was sitting on a block in front of the machines, unmoving, wires snaking down the back of his shirt, presumably plugged into a port linking him and the computer above. Lines of data were running on the huge screen above him, data that were taken from Zedaph’s mind. Zedaph was hunched over, his head tilted downwards, on a low-power setting or in sleep mode.

Tango’s loud stumble in and heavy breathing called attention towards him and Xisuma. The endermen paused, turning towards them. Zedaph too, awoke from his slumber and turned to look at Tango, his purple eyes glowing so brightly they were almost white. He didn’t smile or greet Tango, simply observed him analytically, wordlessly, as though he was gathering information from the mere sight of Tango and uploading it straight into the computer.

“Zed,” Tango called out, ignoring the angry screeching of the endermen that had begun around him. He stood up and headed forward, only for Xisuma to grab his arm from behind and pull him back.

“You can’t disturb ZEDAPH,” Xisuma urged in a low voice. “He doesn’t recognize you. His humanity program is temporarily deactivated while he’s part of the computer, while he’s receiving and uploading data.”

“Humanity program?” Tango echoed in a hoarse whisper.

“You’re an intruder. Let me handle this,” Xisuma assured, and stood himself in front of Tango, facing Zedaph, the endermen and the enormous computer.

“And you’re not?” Tango questioned. His answer would come in the form of the nearest enderman screeching at them loudly.

**“XISUMA,”** Zedaph spoke in an emotionless, electronic voice that was perhaps part of the computer’s. He was translating for the enderman, probably, though Tango wouldn’t doubt that Xisuma could understand ender-speak. It chilled Tango to hear that voice emerge from Zedaph, void of all the emotions his words were usually so packed with. **“You were not summoned. You’re not supposed to be here.”**

“ZEDAPH’s not supposed to be here,” Xisuma responded calmly. “He hasn’t completed his player experiments.”

A responding screech. **“ZEDAPH came to The End,”** Zedaph pointed out.

“He came to do end busting, to collect materials from The End. He wasn’t here to report his progress,” Xisuma explained.

The enderman chattered loudly, angrily, before raising a screech even higher than before. Tango flinched at the high frequency but Xisuma stood his ground against the enderman’s anger.

**“We told him not to return until he was ready to report his progress and be dismantled. You know that his model isn’t made to be connected more than once to the main computers.”**

“Dismantled?!” Tango’s voice rose in a squeak. Xisuma elbowed him to be silent.

“Yes, but you know that ZEDAPH doesn’t remember his commands when his humanity program is running. You’ve installed a fear of The End in him to make up for that, but he was swayed by his friend to come to The End anyway.”

**“Swayed?”**

“Convinced. To persuade someone to do something. Human reaction that occurs when one does something against their better judgement because it means something to someone they care about, and the human values that above their own discomfort,” Xisuma explained.

The enderman lost interest in them, ending the conversation abruptly, and went back to fiddling with the machines. Zedaph turned away from them to stare at nothing, out into the void. The screen above him flashed - presumably the notification that a certain threshold of information had been retrieved from Zedaph - and Zedaph’s body sagged, powering down. His glowing eyes flickered, struggling to retain power.

_We told him not to return until he was ready to report his progress and be dismantled. You know that his model isn’t made to be connected more than once to the main computers._

Zedaph wasn’t in low power mode. He was _losing_ power. He was being drained. About to be discarded.

“Zed,” Tango whispered.

They were going to take Zedaph from him and it was his fault that he was going to lose one of his best friends.

Xisuma glanced back at Tango, then took a daring step forward.

“If I may,” Xisuma spoke up. The enderman turned around to face Xisuma with a screech of annoyance. Without Zedaph’s translations, Tango wouldn’t know what the enderman was saying, but he could certainly tell from its body language that it was annoyed at Xisuma. “ZEDAPH’s still sitting here in physical form. He hasn’t turned back into code. He’s not a part of the main computer yet. I can repair ZEDAPH’s connection port. It’s not too late to unplug him and return him to the overworld to continue his experiments.”

The enderman screeched once again at Xisuma.

“Yes, I see that the information ZEDAPH has provided is generally… useless,” Xisuma’s eyes darted briefly towards Tango to indicate that he didn’t mean anything insulting by that. “But you can’t compare his information with mine and EXY’s. ZEDAPH’s information is all part of being human. Human curiosity. It should be read through that lens. He made a game with armour stands for his friends to play, that’s why he knows the knockback enchantment effect on armour stands. He created this crazy potion computer that throws items in the air, that’s why he knows the angle at which items fly when hit by slime blocks. In fact, ZEDAPH’s the only person who uses hoppers to pick up loose items that are not sent directly into it via a dropper or a chest - he’s creative! He’s inventing! Another human reaction! Isn’t all this great information?”

The enderman stared at Xisuma, who was now flourishing his arms in the air to emphasize the importance of Zedaph’s research. Xisuma pointed at another line of code on the screen.

“Question: Is that sheep looking at you? Conclusion: Sheep may or may not look at you. Aha! I bet you didn’t know that! There are no sheeps in The End!” Xisuma exclaimed. “And this one: polar bears cannot sit in boats. Such crucial information! What if the endermen wanted to bring a polar bear across a distance one day? Now you know-”

The enderman screeched, this time stretching the sound thinner, sharper.

“-that you can teleport the polar bear is not important! The important thing is, ZEDAPH has learnt that polar bears cannot sit in boats, so you _know_ you can’t bring a polar bear across a distance by boat!”

The enderman made a shorter screech and turned away. Xisuma turned to Tango.

“We’re dismissed. The enderman said that they’ll reconsider how important the human element is in Zed’s information. We can bring Zedaph back home as long as he returns to The End with better information next time.” Xisuma started walking briskly towards Zedaph. “Quick, help me to unplug him.”

It was surreal for Tango to tug those wires out of Zedaph’s back and watch the protruded metal port in the middle of his back retract and smoothen over with synthetic skin.

“Now we have to throw him off the island,” Xisuma urged, already lifting Zedaph’s sagged shoulders up and pulling him towards the edge of the island. Tango picked up Zedaph’s lifeless legs and followed.

“Why?” Tango asked on the way there.

“We need the death message,” Xisuma told him, and on the count of three, Zedaph was hurled into the void.

**_Zedaph fell out of the world._ **

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When we were brainstorming this concept, we came up with genius acronym name meanings for X and Z and ya bet I'm gonna use them. :P

Xisuma teleported them back to Zedaph’s base where he had respawned in his bed.

Zedaph lay there, unmoving. As Tango drew closer, he could see that Zedaph’s purple eyes were dimmed and lifeless. He prodded Zedaph's arm with a finger and hit the metallic part beneath, the synthetic skin no longer as soft as flesh. 

“His fuse is busted. I have to repair his port connection and some internal wiring,” Xisuma said. Tango helped to roll Zedaph over. Xisuma knelt beside the bed and lifted the back of Zedaph’s shirt. Running his gloved fingers down Zedaph’s back, Xisuma must have found a hidden button that made Zedaph’s synthetic skin pull away to reveal the port again. From some secret compartment of his suit, Xisuma produced wires and plugged them into the port, connecting himself and Zedaph.

Xisuma’s visor lit up with the same enderman shade of purple that Zedaph’s eyes had been, backwards lines of white code scrolling through the inside of his screen. When he spoke again, his voice was more electronic, similar to Zedaph's when he was connected to the main computer back in The End.

“I want you to know that Zedaph was resisting the computer connection. The big flash on the screen was Zedaph's refusal to upload his consciousness into the computer. A part of him - the human program; it was deactivated, but maybe being human is more central than just lines of code - anyway, Zedaph didn’t want to _die_. He didn't want to become a part of the computer, didn't want to preserve himself as lines of code, despite his failing internal systems probably screaming at him. He was holding on to _hope_ , hope that _you'd_ save him, perhaps. He wanted to return to Hermitcraft,” Xisuma told Tango.

Tango glanced over at Zedaph, his lifeless, unpowered body slumped across the bed. If Zedaph was here, he would have denied what Xisuma had said and rephrased the situation with something like _“Someone has to watch over you, Tango, if I don’t do it, who will?!”_ and followed up with boisterous laughter. Gosh, he already missed Zedaph. Tango reached down to place his hand on Zedaph's shoulder. Zedaph didn't physically react, but an image of him smiling widely in response flickered briefly in Tango’s mind.

So Zed and Xisuma… they could enderman-teleport, they had the same affinities with the colour purple, they were both connected to the same systems...

“So…” Tango pointed a finger between them, “you and Zed…”

Xisuma straightened. “We’re Ender-made machines, created as part of their research. We’re to keep an eye on how far the technological developments of redstone can bring players, and whether redstone can be used to enhance Ender Science.”

“So that explains why Zed messes with redstone,” Tango snorted. “But as you said, Zed doesn’t use redstone the way… _you_ use it, for example. You apply redstone practically on farms, like a redstoner does. Zed… Zed does his own thing with redstone.”

“And that’s exactly the distinction the endermen wanted to make when they created ZEDAPH’s model,” Xisuma nodded. “I don’t think they expected him to go absolutely ham on redstone, but…” Xisuma shook his head and chuckled. “That’s the ZEDAPH difference.”

“ZEDAPH. XISUMA.” Tango repeated. “You speak of your names as though they are acronyms.”

“They are!” Xisuma exclaimed. “I was the first prototype. XISUMA, or ‘X Integrated-System User with Magic Affinity’. I have to wear this suit because they didn’t quite get my vitals right; they created me based off the End dimension instead of the overworld dimension - but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t created to blend in with players. My purpose is completely technical, to research exactly what redstone can do. But then the endermen discovered the power of a community - they too are a pack species, after all - and created Evil X, who had the same functions as me but was made to integrate with players.”

“Evil X?”

“Yes, he was ‘Y Integrated-System User with Magic Affinity’. YISUMA. But, as you know, the X and the Y in our names are silent, and he looked just like me, so after the chaos he caused, everyone named him Evil X or Exy instead.”

“EX was made to _blend in_?” Tango couldn’t help but snicker. "Talk about experiments that went wrong."

Xisuma smiled and looked away from Tango as the code on his screen scrolled to the end. He unplugged himself from Zedaph, the glow of his purple visor fading. With Tango’s help, they rolled Zedaph back over to see his purple eyes light up in reactivation, his internal systems fixed.

**“ZEDAPH rebooting.”** Zedaph said.

Xisuma scooted Zedaph’s body over and sat at the edge of the bed, taking a shaky breath in exhaustion. Tango made himself comfy on the floor next to the bed, giving Xisuma a few moments to recover.

**“ZEDAPH rebooted. Restarting…”**

“So Zed’s the Z prototype. ZISUMA,” Tango grinned, reading the name as how Doc pronounced Xisuma with a ‘Z’.

“Yes… and no. ZEDAPH’s a completely different model. After EX's failure, they realised that a creation that was made to socialize should not be given the same amount of magic access as myself. They realised that the creation should not be aware of its status as a robot, that commands from them should be subconscious and not conscious. ZEDAPH stands for ‘Z Ender-Designed Augmented Prototype Human’, meant to visually and mentally integrate into the world of players. They tested his functionality on a singleplayer world before giving me the green light to bring him to a multiplayer world to, well, integrate.”

Xisuma grew serious, leaning closer to Tango as though his next words were not for Zedaph to hear. “Which is why his model is not made for repeated connections to the main Ender Computer, not like me. His system can’t withstand the pressure. He’s a one-time-use model, and he should _never_ return to The End again until his model is ready to retire for good.”

**“Scanning surroundings… scan complete. Overworld detected. Self-Awareness deactivated. Humanity program reactivated. Recalibrating…”**

“Zedaph doesn’t know what he is, and he must _never_ find out in order to continue living life as humanly as possible. You must keep what you’ve seen today to yourself, Tango.”

“Of course,” Tango promised in a breath.

**“Recalibrated. Systems online.”**

Zedaph opened his eyes. For a moment, the brilliance of his glowing purple eyes dazzled them before they dimmed to their usual dark indigo. His impassive expression softened with confusion and his stiff body relaxed into the bed. Zedaph blinked up at the ceiling - once, twice - and inhaled deeply, before his gaze drifted to his side where Xisuma and Tango sat.

“What happened?”

“You died in The End, fool!” Tango crowed, coming up with an immediate excuse. “Fell right off the edge!”

“I didn’t!” Zedaph gasped in horror, pulling himself up into a sitting position. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and dug his hand into his pocket, pulling out his communicator.

**_Zedaph fell out of the world._ **

“You were trying to see how far you could throw an ender pearl and you hit the edge of a floating island. You grabbed onto a block, but an enderman wanted that very same block, and it picked it up with you still holding on! You let go of the block so the enderman could have it, but you forgot that you were standing at the edge of the island and you just backed away into the void!” Tango continued, finding amusement in telling the story of the lamest death ever. Xisuma, however, elbowed him - he was probably carrying the story a little too far.

Zedaph, too, narrowed his eyes in suspicion at Tango’s story, though he was more bothered by another concern.

“Why is Xisuma here?” Zedaph asked slowly.

“He’s here to laugh at you!” Tango declared, turning to Xisuma expectantly.

“Oh, right!” Xisuma tried to play along. He cleared his throat, “A-ha-ha! You fell off the edge! What a derp!”

Zedaph rolled his eyes even as a grin spread across his face.

“What a derp indeed,” Zedaph conceded good-naturedly.

Xisuma muttered an excuse to leave. As Zedaph waved his goodbye to Xisuma, Tango flopped himself next to Zedaph, sitting at the side of his bed.

“So,” Tango swung his arm across Zedaph’s shoulders, “ _you_ are never going back to The End again. What do you want to do here in the overworld instead?”

“Oh! We can work on my security system,” Zedaph's grin widened. “How deadly do you think an army of baby zombies armed with sharpness-five diamond swords would be against you?"

"No redstone for this contraption?" Tango raised an eyebrow.

"I mean, there'll be pistons creating a wall around you, and a water slide to hold the baby zombies in. But why do we need _redstone_ when I can spill your _red blood_?" Zedaph followed with an attempt at an evil cackle, and Tango lifted his other hand to punch Zedaph in the shoulder.

"You're the weirdest guy ever!" Tango complained.

"But the most lovable!" Zedaph declared, and Tango had to agree with him.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was _so_ heavy on exposition because it's only 3 chapters but there's a _lot_ going on. I had to cut quite a bit when editing (especially the bits about EX's history because it wasn't directly important to this story) and it hurt my soul. This concept/world really deserves its own multi-chaptered build up and thematic explorations.
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed the peek into this world anyway! :D
> 
> And no, I totally didn't write this story just for the 'Zisuma' joke :P

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought? :D


End file.
